CRHA Regular Meeting   3/22/2021

All right, why don't we, if everyone is ready, let's go ahead and begin.

So this is the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board of Commissioners board meeting for March, Monday, March 22nd, 2021.

We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order.

Leslie, are you on the, would you like to do the roll call if you can, if you're- Can you hear me?

Commissioner Goldblatt?

Yes.

Dr. Henry?

Yep.

Mayor Walker?

Okay, wonderful.

and we can meet virtually due to Governor Northam's executive order number 53.

That says, sorry, let me get it up in front of me.

Public gatherings of greater than 10 persons, I believe it's 25 persons now in a room.

According to code 2.2-3708.283, permits public bodies to meet electronically to discuss business required or necessary

to operation of the public body in discharge of its lawful purposes, duties and responsibilities in times of emergencies and to address COVID-19.

Therefore, this meeting is being held electronically pursuant to Virginia law because COVID-19 makes pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic makes it impractical and unsafe to assemble a quorum physically in a single location.

Okay.

Oh, and we did the roll call out of order, but that's okay.

All right, let's have a quick moment of silence before we begin.

All right, thanks everyone.

So at this time, we just kind of have, while we have everyone listening in, any general announcements, reminders from anyone.

I'll note the ones that are at the bottom of our agenda.

The commissioners, we're gonna have a special board meeting Tuesday, March 30th at 5 p.m. to approve the budget.

And then we'll have to talk about whether we usually do a work session on a Thursday between our monthly meetings.

So whether we want to do it April 8th or 15th, something we need to figure out.

Our next regular board meeting is April 26th at 6 p.m.

There are safety meetings every other Tuesday.

The next one is March 30th.

and our agenda notes the passcode but I know it's on the website too.

The Zoom link is always the same.

The Redevelopment Committee is now a monthly meeting, first Thursday of the month.

I believe the updated time is 4 p.m. now and I'll check with Miss Glenn-Matthews but

I think that's the new update.

The resident service committee meets every second Tuesday at 1 p.m. And we hope to add more sort of consistent committee meetings as we go through the year.

Yes, we do have one.

I'm sorry, I was supposed to send it over to you and I was just trying to, but I'm too late.

It went out on Friday and it went official out to the news today.

CRHA will be opening its HCV waitlist on Monday, March the 29th at 9 a.m. and it will stay open until Friday, April the 2nd at 4 p.m.

The waitlist is electronic this year and it will be available on portal.

C. Ville, RHA.com.

That is on our website.

It is on our Facebook page, and it should be on the news probably in the next couple of days.

That's great.

That's exciting.

If anybody would like to address the CRHA at this time, please click the raise hand icon.

You'll have three minutes to speak.

If you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

And we have Brandon Collins.

There we go.

Good evening, CRHA commissioners.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I am an organizer for the Public Housing Association of Residents known as PHAR.

PHAR is the federally recognized resident council and resident advisory board here in Charlottesville for public housing.

And part of a resident advisory board duties is also keeping an eye on

the Section 8 programs.

I was very excited that Housing Authority is going to be opening the waitlist.

I think PHAR is open and willing to help next week.

I think you're going to need all hands on deck from as many partners as possible and

We know how to access the portal, and we're ready to help.

So if anybody is listening and needs help, call the Housing Authority.

But you can also call PHAR at 434-984-3522.

Oh my god.

It's been a while since I said our phone number.

Anyways, it's my understanding that folks can also start putting their information in starting tomorrow on the portal so that they're up and ready and good to go on Monday.

I hope that's correct, but that's my understanding.

So I hope people who need a voucher will be ready to hop on that because it's gonna happen quick.

Otherwise, PHAR, we don't have a whole lot to update you all on, except that construction on Crescent Halls is right around the corner.

Very exciting and folks are nervous, but also excited.

And there are a lot of moving parts to the whole process.

PHAR is in the process of putting together an update that will go out to residents

And through that process, we'll be having a lot of conversations and we're certainly going to share that information with you all.

I think what's super important at Crescent Halls in any of these redevelopment efforts is making sure we all have the same information and that it's super accurate because things can get tossed around so quickly and confusion can be sown.

So we're really trying to avoid that as best as we can and hope that you all are doing the same.

I think that's all we have for now.

I know you're heading into the end of March and turning a new page on April 1st.

And we really hope that all is well.

And we know Housing Authority has been working really hard this past year on a number of things, getting things in order, getting redevelopment rolling.

and trying to bring better services and a better life to residents.

So we appreciate that and appreciate the partnership as always.

Next up, we have a phone caller in at 703 area code.

Once I let you into the CRHA, please state your name and you'll have three minutes.

Yes.

Hi, my name is Tim Sansone.

I'm calling in from Century Force Security, the security contractor for CRHA properties.

Wanted to participate in today's board meeting, just to go over some of the incidents that have been occurring at some of the CRHA properties in the last three months since the contract started in January.

Our security team has reported a considerable increase in drug-related activity primarily at properties including West Haven and Sixth Street.

There are particular units that the security team has observed and reported on as far as narcotic activity and gambling activity going on at those properties.

There have been several incident reports that have been submitted for these properties that the security team has identified.

They are currently coordinating with CPD on some of the quote hotspot areas on these properties that are of particular concern attracting other outside non-resident elements to the property which are somewhat compounding the issues at these properties.

I also wanted to participate today

I understand that there's been some dialogue or conversations as far as the scope of our services and the contract in general that we have with CRHA.

I'm not sure what's been discussed thus far as far as the continuation of our current security contract.

I think everyone would agree or know that the properties that we're here to patrol and provide services for

are definitely in need of some type of security service or coverage, which is what we're currently providing.

But my understanding is that there's been a proposal submitted or will be submitted as far as changing the direction of services or possibly eliminating security services for some of these properties.

I had spoken with John Sales the other day, me and our Director of Operations have had conversations with Mr.

Sales as far as the security services for the properties go.

Based on budgeting challenges, we understand that a change in direction had to be made around early February after approximately a month of service was provided just due to the cost of the services that had been provided during the month of January.

We have given in consideration of these budgeting challenges, we have put together a different proposal that would

somewhat address these budgeting challenges while also still ensuring that these properties are also receiving the security coverage they desperately need.

I have a copy of it.

A copy was sent to Mr.

Sales the other day.

If the board needs copies, I can submit copies as well of the proposal.

But ultimately, the proposal for the revised budget for these services were submitted with approximately 23% reduction in services.

And Tim, I see that your hand is also raised.

Looks like on another device.

Okay, thank you.

So next up, we have Emily Dreyfus.

Emily, you're on with CRHA.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Emily Dreyfus and I'm with the Legal Aid Justice Center.

Our phone number is 977-0553.

And

I'm going to toss out some other phone numbers for folks because it is really exciting to hear that the Section 8 HCV waiting list is opening.

And I think there are a lot of people who will find the online portal to be very difficult.

So I hope that there will be lots of help as Brandon referenced, I'm sure for

Sounds like they're ready to be helpful, which is great.

The phone number on the announcement, that flyer that we got from CRHA is 326-4672.

So I think if people are listening in and need some help with that application, that's the first place to try.

And then PHAR's phone number is 984-922-7200.

3255.

And I hope that we will get a really good response and some people will be able to find housing.

Great.

If anybody else would like to address the CRHA at this time, please click the raise hand icon.

Or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

Okay, thank you.

In terms of the security contract, Mr.

Sales, I know we're gonna be talking about the budget.

Yes, I think that's a good idea.

Okay.

Tim, will you be with us in, I don't know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes?

Can you?

Yes.

Yes, I'll be here.

Okay.

All right.

I think we had talked about this a bit in our budget session last week.

So we'll talk about that.

We'll just get it down to our budget piece in a moment.

Not a problem.

Oh, and also, Mr.

Sales, so I need to amend the agenda.

We had a late addition of a resolution, 1423.

And so we would like to add that to the end of our meeting tonight.

So I think

and it is authorizing the acceptance of a payroll protection program loan called the PPP loans.

And so we'd like to add that to the end of the agenda.

That is correct.

I move to add this agenda item.

Wonderful.

And Leslie, I guess we need the roll call vote because we're on.

Dr. Henry?

Yes.

Commissioner Slaughter?

Commissioner Slaughter?

Okay, motion passed.

Next, we have updates from commissioners.

Any discussion about work sessions?

And I apologize we do not have accurate minutes based upon the dates in the agenda.

So we will get those to you at the work session.

We'll have those minutes for both the December, January, and the February meeting.

Yeah, OK. All right.

Hold on the approval of minutes.

Yeah, so we we've had two good meetings since our last meeting.

So at the most recent one, we actually spent a lot of time talking about transit services.

There are a lot of residents talked a lot about this, that I think there's some proposals to change transit services.

And there was a lot of concern

about the way that city bus services crescent halls, given the nature of that population and where the bus stops are going to be located.

And so we spent a lot of time talking about some of the hazards just like for people who are elderly or have kids having to cross really busy streets to get to bus services, having to walk a very long way, which is not feasible for all of our residents.

and then also frequency.

So thinking about how frequently the people get bus services which is really not feasible for some of our residents to have only hourly services.

So to that end, I know that the housing authority has worked with this organization C3 some around a survey that's been distributed for all Charlottesville residents but I think they're particularly interested in getting data from

residents in section eight and public housing.

And so I know that that's I think it's up on the Facebook page.

And it's been sent out in various other ways.

But people who want to weigh in on how transit is working, it's an opportunity to do so.

And I've had some conversations about trying to get a standing committee.

This is that Mr. Kenneth Martin's recommendation, a standing committee

of residents and so PHAR residents and the CAT director to try to provide some feedback since a lot of residents are active users of the bus services.

So as routes come up to change or as populations needs shift,

It would be good to have a line of communication to the CAT director to communicate those.

And then at the meeting prior to that we had a long presentation by the Buck Squad and they talked some about what the work that they've been doing, some of the successes they've seen, the ways that things function,

what their training has looked like, what some of their plans are.

And they fielded a lot of questions from residents who talked about some of their experiences and what's been going on.

So those have been the past two meetings.

There was also some talk at the prior meeting about a shooting that happened in the vicinity of West Haven and a lot of questions about whether or not it happened on West Haven property or somewhere else.

And we're waiting for some updates from CPD about that since many of the residents felt that it seemed strange that

It was being reported as at West Haven, but didn't necessarily seem to be at West Haven.

Thank you.

And thank you.

I think that committee, it sounds like it's been doing remarkable work.

So it's in a time where it's hard to meet.

I'm really glad that that's been a place where people can get together and speak.

Any other commissioner updates?

All right, then we'll move on to the public hearing for the budget for the fiscal year 2022.

2020, thank you so much.

I'm going to share my screen.

Can everyone see my screen?

Is it big enough or do I need to zoom in some more?

Are we all good?

Okay.

So I'm going to highlight some of the big things where there are like changes because this is a public hearing.

So then we can open it up to public comment.

So the first item I'm going to highlight is the net tenant revenue.

And this is a comparison from the previous two years.

So we are projecting a net loss of tenant revenue of about $150,000.

And this is after increasing the number of units that we've leased up.

So we're averaging about $110 less per public housing unit per month when it comes to rental tenant revenue.

So I did highlight that because that is a big loss and our operating costs will increase even though we have that loss from the net revenue because we are still leasing up the units.

We're still paying the utilities and we are still maintaining that unit.

We do have a increase in the PHA operating funds.

That's two things.

It's an increase in the overall operating fund, and it's also a reflection of the $250,000 the housing authority received in shortfall funding.

We actually received 652, but there were three different tranches of funds.

We've spent the first,

I believe it was 124,000.

We've spent that so far, which you will see in the financial report because it's showing a larger net income cash flow for the housing communities where we allocated those dollars.

And here we're projecting to use tier two increment A of that 258,000

So we'll still have another $250,000 for next year's budget.

But if we need it this year, we can also use it this year.

But we have projected to spend it over three years instead of spending it all in one year.

And we also have an increase in other revenue.

That increase reflects the rent that the Section 8 program, HCV program, is going to be paying Sixth Street for using their community center for a year.

So we are going to start paying the housing authority, the PHA, for this space that we occupy to do business.

There was a increase also to the administrative salaries.

That's because we did split the two programs, HCV and public housing program.

They were managed by one individual.

Now it's two individuals, so one individual for each program.

So that was a increase to the salaries there.

That it's also gonna reflect the increase to the benefits as well.

The other increases here were

are expenses under PHA, under public housing, but they're actually revenues under the central office.

So we're getting a more management fee, a larger administrative fee, and a larger asset management fee as well for our services of managing public housing.

So the more units you have occupied, the larger admin fee you pull.

The other items are relatively the same.

We did reduce the legal expenses for public housing.

We're going with a new model with less eviction.

So we wanted to reflect that in our budget.

We're really focusing on counseling and providing the services and opportunities for residents to address lease violations and concerns before we move to a punitive step of evicting residents.

One other thing, the tenant services.

So we did add $50,000 under tenant services, and it's really earmarked towards a community-based safety initiative.

So we've had the Buck Squad,

come to us with an axe.

Peace in the Streets reached out last week.

I don't know if they're asking for anything, but they did reach out.

So it's potential that they could potentially ask for funding.

So it's $50,000 there for that or for something.

And that's really gonna be the safety committee that's deciding what those dollars go towards.

Ordinary Maintenance.

So as you can see here for labor, we've almost doubled the maintenance salaries.

We're going to have, based upon this budget, 10 technicians that are focusing on work orders and turning vacant units.

We have one director already.

We have one work order clerk that's going to be focusing on inventorying our materials and equipment and also inputting work orders and tracking those work orders to completion.

And then we also added one crescent halls janitorial, which is just cleaning crescent halls and ensuring that it's safe and disinfected.

We added that individual during COVID

We're projecting to keep it individual throughout the year because it has been a benefit to the residents.

As you can see here, for most of our contracts, we've heavily reduced the dollar amounts.

And that's because we're doing a lot of work in-house.

Brauno is like fixing everything almost.

I mean, one day he's out under a truck, fixing a truck, and then he's working on lawnmowers, working in a boiler, elevators.

So he's having him, we've been able to reduce the amount of contracts we're issuing to

Third parties to do work for the housing authority.

And we've eliminated the $253,000 for unit turns because we've actually hired individuals that are turning the units a lot cheaper than what we were paying.

We paid a contract of around $85,000 to do four units that we ended up going to finish after they were finished.

So it's a lot cheaper for us to turn the units and we've realized that we have the capacity now to do it.

We're projecting to finish four units this week alone, and I think we finished eight or nine already this month.

So we're moving at a rapid pace thanks to the maintenance department.

The other item that's been cut here, and we've talked about it the last being, and it's going to probably be a big topic today, is security services.

We did sign a contract for

$240,000.

The solicitation was already out when I got here.

We moved forward with it.

After going through numbers, looking at what we're projected to lose in revenue, the operating fund not catching up for a year because there's a year behind when they actually look at our budget and what we actually did when it comes to tenant revenue.

I, we really can't afford this service.

And Tim spoke about the January services.

The housing authority cannot afford what we paid in January, which is about $43,000 in a month on security.

I don't know any housing authority that can afford that.

That's about a half a million dollars a year.

That would by far be the largest contract we have.

So we can't afford that.

And anything less than that, is it really effective?

Is just a question.

If it's not deterring the crime, and if we're not catching individuals committing the crime, then why should we pay so much?

$240,000, I just think we can do so much more with it in other arenas.

And I've had this discussion with Crescent Halls.

I know that was a big topic at the last meeting.

And so I talked to Miss Washington and Miss Sanders this morning about what safety looks like and what their greatest concerns are at the building.

And it was identified as having someone at the door is checking IDs, knowing who's coming in and out.

And we can hire somebody to do that for a lot cheaper than what we're currently paying security to do it for.

and we have more control over that service.

So I just think that's the route we need to go.

And we're not gonna get to our goal of having the months of reserve by continuing paid security.

And it's impossible unless we cut something else like maintenance or any other item.

And in order to continue, we have to find something else to cut.

And really there's no more room

We've asked for more maintenance.

We've asked to take care of the units.

We've asked to turn the units.

Now we're doing all those things.

We have to continue that track if we really want to change this housing authority.

Yes, we've done a lot in seven or eight months, but we still have a whole lot more to do.

And if we change directions now, we're not going to get there.

We're definitely not going to get there.

We have to be committed to what we're doing.

And this is a hard decision to make, but it's a decision we have to make.

And I think residents are going to support this decision based upon what I've heard so far.

The insurance, yes, our insurance has gone up.

You can see the big difference from 2019, I think it's 2020, 2020 to 2021.

And that was the inclusion of a property that was missed for a couple of years.

So when that property was added, that is why there was such a big jump.

There isn't a big jump this year, but we have heard adding some security measures

such as cameras and other things, locks, I will reduce our insurance rate.

And I don't think there's anything else big here but I do want to highlight the net

revenue that we're expecting in public housing this year, and that's $357,000.

And here's a comparison of the previous years, which is why we're in trouble status now.

The net revenue wasn't there, $35,000, $13,000.

This is the first year in many years where we're actually netting the cash flow that we are supposed to have in our reserve in case

HUD doesn't come through with funding for a couple of months.

I mean, if HUD didn't come through with funding now we would shut down in like two weeks.

Not just because we don't have the reserve there.

And that puts a lot of families out on the street.

Cause if we can't afford to pay utilities then that's an issue.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

Let's start with are there public comments at this time regarding the proposed budget as presented and I know some of you may not have had the time well to look through it all but

We do have two hands raised.

No matter which one, which order.

Good evening again, commissioners.

We've been pretty supportive of your process on the budget this year.

We know you have a lot of things to consider.

I think Mr.

Sales and his team have done a really good job identifying priorities and ways that money can be used smarter.

That combined with improved staffing with the Housing Authority I think is poised to make a big difference, particularly on maintenance.

I know you've heard me say this before, as you're getting some of these units, these vacant units back online so that more families can be housed,

Not all residents who currently reside in public housing have been able to experience that benefit.

So we're really looking forward to turning that page in April.

And I think residents are really going to start to feel the improvements that you all are making.

And we certainly support the way you've structured your budget in order to do that stuff.

When it comes to security, it's been a rolling conversation for a number of weeks now.

I think it's been fairly well fleshed out.

I can't say for certain that we've reached a critical mass of residents to get their opinion, but the folks we have reached have reached basically a consensus.

So if you set Crescent Halls aside, I think the general feeling is that

The current security company and the previous security company really weren't offering anything, any kind of improvement to resident safety and that housing authority has been very responsive to resident direction on this matter.

pursuing security cameras, but also willing to come up with community-based solutions to safety.

And I think the presence of the Buck Squad and other initiatives that are starting to blossom, folks see that those things can really have an impact on the quality of their lives and safety in their neighborhoods.

I think what's really important to consider is sustaining those efforts.

And we can't just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

But that's going to have to be a real commitment from housing authority and from residents and from our community partners to make this all work.

But I do think that is where residents are consenting.

And on Crescent Halls, I've had a few conversations.

and I think we get a similar take to what Mr.

Sales just reported that at the heart of the matter is having somebody there at the door.

Crescent Hall's residents for a long time have wanted 24 hour security.

I think you might be able to have a door person for 24 hours a day for a cheaper amount of money than what you're paying right now and it may be more effective and they certainly may check

They might provide more security.

You know, you go to a big city, almost every apartment building has a doorman, and it's very effective.

It's not intimidating.

It's just the way things are, and it can be really helpful for folks.

So I think that will be something that residents at Crescent Halls will find acceptable, though I'm not sure they're ready to make that decision just yet.

So as vague as that all sounds as a position from far,

I think that's what you're working with.

It's unfortunate that you're gonna hear maybe some other proposals from security tonight, just as your decision for making, your time for making this decision is really coming up close.

So, hear them out and let's see what we can do to see what residents wanna see happen with their futures on this very, very important issue.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

So yeah, I would like to speak to just statistics since we've started patrolling as of January.

And these reports that our officers submit are through our digital tracking system called Tractic.

Mr.

Sales receives these reports on a daily basis along with other property managers as well.

But since taking over operations in January, there's been a total of 147 incidents that have occurred in just the last three months.

And this is for all the properties.

Of those 147 incidents, our system breaks down those incidents by severity type.

on a scale of one through five.

There's been 23 level one incidents, which basically encompass violent crimes, narcotic activity, and property damage across all the properties, ranging all the way to level five, which are less severe, such as maintenance issues or related incidents.

So clearly there is a need for security.

And I understand that the root of this, this is mainly a budgeting issue.

I would hope that we could all agree that security is definitely a need at these properties.

Given just the statistics here, these incidents obviously have been going on long before we've come in.

When we started our services in January, our initial goal, which we worked on accomplishing, which we've done and continue to do,

is strike a very positive and close working relationship with the Charlottesville Police Department.

We've met on multiple occasions, one-on-one with different sergeants and lieutenants with CPD during our patrols and off hours during the day just with police command at night, especially in January when we were at full staffing level.

We were patrolling concurrently with CPD.

Our officers would patrol with CPD and our vehicles across the different communities.

And that did have a very positive impact as far as statistically speaking, the dip, although it was only about 30 days in January before the services were decreased, we did start seeing results from that.

And of course, these issues aren't going to be resolved over a month, three months, a year, even years, it's gonna take time.

We had conversations with Mr.

Sales that, again, these issues and incidents occurring at these properties, far predate our company or even the prior security company.

My understanding is they've been here for about a couple of years now, I believe since 2018.

And just given the dynamics of these properties, it's gonna take time and it's gonna take resources to really address the challenges, the public safety challenges affecting these communities.

Primarily when we talk about resources that would involve you know diverting and prioritizing security as a category within the budget.

I understand that given the other budgeting shortfalls or concerns that priorities shift, but I really don't think that and this isn't a

a company sales pitch by any means.

I think whether, no matter what the board decides, I think the board needs to look at security as an individual topic and prioritize it and see what can be done differently if budgeting is truly an issue, what can be done differently to solve this public safety challenge rather than, I mean, essentially gutting the entire program.

It's going, I can guarantee you're going to see some negative consequences by if, you know, this proposal were to move through,

As we approach the summertime, the weather gets nicer.

Statistically speaking, no matter what property type we're talking about here, whether it's public housing or it's a five-star resort, it doesn't matter the property type.

Statistically speaking, incidents tend to spike during warmer weather around spring and summertime.

And if, you know, especially now of all times to be considering this proposal,

I think you're going to see a sharp increase in not only incidents and crime, but you're going to probably start seeing an increase in violent crime if we completely remove all security presence from the properties.

During our conversations with Mr.

Sales, it did come up that we were looking at possibly having, you know, unarmed security at Crescent Hall continue regardless of the outcome for the other family units as far as armed security patrols go.

I would definitely recommend that.

As we discussed with Mr.

Sales, that's exactly what the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority does.

They have a building similar to Crescent Hall.

It's called the Dray High Rise.

We actually have officers there 24-7 and those officers are armed.

It's a senior living building for senior citizens and disabled residents.

We have officers there.

We've had officers there over a year on a 24-7 basis and they pay similar to the budget that we had set in January.

Of course, every housing authority has different budgets, but just speaking apples to apples, that's the approach that I would definitely implore the board to consider is to prioritize public safety and security as a top priority, just similar to the Alexandria Housing Authority.

There are ways that we can address both issues, both public safety, security, and the budget.

I just don't think it's the right approach to completely gut the program and divert those resources to other proposed solutions because

I'm not completely aware of these other solutions that were being proposed.

I took a few notes here, but it seems to me that some of these proposed solutions are more like neighborhood watch programs and I'm not knocking any neighborhood watch programs.

Those can be especially effective, but given the dynamic incidents and issues occurring at these properties,

I can guarantee you a neighborhood watch or community-based program like that alone without some type of security support or police support is not going to be effective enough to curb these issues.

I mean, with all the issues happening at some of these properties, you have some very serious violent crime occurring.

That's not to say that it's impossible to fix or it's going to permanently negatively impact the reputation of these properties.

It is fixable, but it's going to take the correct amount of resources to divert towards these security programs to make it more effective.

During the conversations about having or exploring having like in-house, like a doorman, for example, in-house directly paid as an employee,

Of course, that's an option.

There's pros and cons on both sides.

There would be some savings in that aspect.

However, you also need to consider is the liability of it.

One of the primary purposes of hiring a security company at all, no matter what the property type is or the services provided is that liability is shifted onto the contractor.

If any incident, whether an armed or unarmed officer were to be involved in an incident and there was a lawsuit,

That liability would fall on the contractor, whereas if you have a doorman, whether he's armed or unarmed, if there's any incident or any lawsuit that arises, that liability is immediately placed on the housing authority just because that person is a direct employee of the housing authority.

So there's a lot of these different considerations that need to be thought about before moving forward with any one type of decision.

One thing too I wanted to bring to everyone's attention, aside from this conversation, is despite the short nature of our tenure thus far, we've only been patrolling for about three months, two of which were on a reduced schedule than when we started, we're encountering some issues with getting the right number of police resources to the properties.

Our officers are doing the best that they can with the officers we have.

We originally started with four officers working 10 hour shifts each four days a week.

And at the beginning, we also had a lot of police cooperation.

But since the direction has changed, we've noticed also a change in police resources being, you know, patrolling these properties, primarily West Haven.

Our sergeant has been reporting that some of the police patrols through the community since January have

dramatically changed to where the police officers are just driving down the main road and not really patrolling the parking lot areas.

We discussed this with Mr.

Sales the other day during one of our meetings.

But as many people know, a lot of the incidents that occur, at least primarily at West Haven, they're not occurring right there on the main drag.

They're really occurring off to the side or they're occurring in the parking lots.

And if the police are just driving through, in and out, just zipping in and out, it's not as proactive and it's not as effective.

Our officers, on the other hand, are patrolling each and every parking lot.

They are observing and reporting everything they see, hence the 147 incidents we've reported since January.

But that was one concern that the officers had brought up recently, and it's a change, a considerable change, we've seen since January when we started.

Ultimately, though, I

I really believe that the board should consider alternative options that can address, again, both the budgeting issue and the security issue together, rather than prioritizing one over the other.

I really do think there is a solution that can address both.

And we have submitted a proposal to Mr.

Sales.

I'm not sure if the board has received a copy of it yet, but it does

call for basically continuous security coverage of these properties in some aspects while still giving a discount to the budget.

Basically our proposal we'd submitted was approximately a 23 to 24% decrease in the budget for security services than what was originally budgeted.

This can still be tweaked if that's not enough.

There are other ways.

I just strongly would discourage the board from considering

Can I just address that really quick?

So I did receive the proposal.

The proposal call for amendment to the contract, the new contract amount would be $178,000.

And during the conversation with Mr. Sanson and his director of operations, I believe, the conversation turned to, if we really want to fix the issue, we would need to have services like we did in January at $40,000 a month.

The issue is not going to get fixed at $14,000 a month.

Cutting it to roughly $9,000 a month, what is that providing service-wise to the communities?

And that's why I did not make the amendment to my proposal.

Sure and in response to that the yes as we discussed Mr.

Sales the truly to to truly provide the the best level of the our most recommended level of service is what we were providing in January the results were there albeit they were it was brief for about 30 days the results were coming in and that truly would make an impact

just strictly speaking like I said apples to apples it is a very similar budget and approach that the Alexandria Housing Authority has implemented for their properties I don't know if any consultation with either that housing authority or other housing authorities in the Commonwealth have been considered but that was why we you know proposed that not only because of what we've seen just in January at the CRHA properties but our experience in deploying similar

services and approaches at other housing authorities like that one as well.

But again, at the end of the day, we understand there's the budgeting issue to be addressed.

And that's why having this proposal that we submitted, that's why I said as a disclaimer, it's not going to be the exact same service level as having what we had done in January, but it would be able to still provide a deterrent and a presence because if people start seeing that there's no security at all at these properties,

then the word's going to get out and that you're gonna see a lot more activity happening at these properties, especially with the summer months coming up.

Okay, thank you.

Can I ask a question before we lose Mr. Sanson?

So you've talked about Alexandria a lot, but you haven't told, like I would, you have this one option that seems like the most militarized of all options, armed security, 24 hours a day.

Can you, but you didn't say how safe that property is.

What are the incidents look like there?

Yes.

So at that building, it's exactly what was being proposed for Creston Hall.

It's access control.

It's like having a doorband, so to speak, but they use armed officers there.

We were originally deployed there at the outset of the pandemic just to control access for residents only and registered caregivers, mainly because of course, with the vulnerable populations in that building, they were trying to, ARHA was trying to restrict access, unnecessary access and foot traffic into the building.

They've changed their policies over the last year as far as like letting relaxing who can come in, but there's been some serious incidents in that building alone.

But even given those incidents, the area in Alexandria is a little bit different than Charlottesville.

The crime rate and the statistics there are different as well, but the armed officers are there primarily for a access control purpose.

I heard all that but I don't think I heard you say how safe it is now.

You just added more security.

Oh it's definitely safer.

Since we've come in and over there they have a similar resident committee that is similar to PHAR where those residents have a very close bond with our officers.

We meet regularly with management there at ARHA

We have a very close relationship with ARHA and since our services were provided or implemented from last year, the incidents have significantly decreased and the presence alone there of having an armed officer has really changed the landscape there as far as the number of incidents occurring and

that housing authority's ability to curb the activity.

Our officers have helped the, again, that housing authority has a different, I guess, approach as far as like evictions and their policies go.

They are, I believe, still evicting residents that are in violation of their leases.

Our officers have been integral as far as assisting ARHA with their policies and procedures in that aspect.

I would strongly recommend reaching out to the executive director there.

His name is Keith Pettigrew.

He has been a strong proponent of ours since day one.

And we've been able to assist the housing authority there, not just with this building that's similar to Crescent Hall, but they've had several other properties that we've been able to assist them at too.

I'm gonna challenge you a little further, because those are great words.

Give me numbers.

We had 105 calls a month and now we're down to two.

I can get you the exact numbers.

Let me pull up their account here.

Okay, so in the last 30 days, they've had a total of 18 level one incidents, which again are the more serious incidents.

But that can be categorized as theft property damage, drug use or activity.

And that's in the last 30 days as compared to, let me compare that to the last year.

as compared to 38 level one incidents.

And again, these are just looking at by category.

If you look in the beginning, we had a lot of issues and not only looking at these reports, but going off of memory.

In the beginning, there were a lot of issues, not only with trespassing, but gambling and narcotic issues at this building in particular.

Again, when I'm talking about this building, it's the one, it's called LeDre High Rise.

It's very similar to Crescent Hall.

Those were the main challenges that that building and the housing authority had since we've come in.

the resident took time of course you know having this building is I don't believe has ever had security before we started so it took some time and adjustment period for the residents and even ARHA staff to become accustomed to having security there but once we have been you know implemented and over the last year or so a lot of the residents a lot of the good residents there have been very supportive of us of our presence there they've been very thankful of

the issues that we've been hoping to resolve.

And the housing authority has, like I said, been one of our biggest proponents there.

I mean, there are some challenging residents in that building in particular as the housing authority and our director of operations refers to them as frequent flyers, as far as like the issues or troubles that are caused by certain residents there.

The housing authority is aware of them and they have been very appreciative of our efforts and our

as far as documenting those troubles caused by certain frequent flyer residents as they refer to them.

So again, having the presence there has been very helpful to not only the housing authority, but a lot of the residents there over during the transition period have become very thankful and appreciative of our service there as well.

So that is a high-rise situation?

So we have with the housing authority there, they have buildings similar to that, but we're not patrolling those buildings for that housing authority.

We do have other clients that are very similar to like South First Street, Sixth Street.

They're not housing authority properties.

One is a private apartment complex, privately owned.

I believe they have certain Section 8 housing units though.

And then there's another similar property that's technically a condominium, which is also run by a board of directors.

But that has a very high crime rate.

They have shootings there on a regular occasion.

Those properties we patrol.

The one with the shootings I'm referring to is called Sequoia Condominium.

That property has, actually similar to what we provide for South First Street, or at least what we did in January, they have two officers patrolling there concurrently for eight hour shifts.

And that is really necessary, you know, to have two officers, because again, it goes back to an officer safety question.

And I think that came up in past safety committee hearings or meetings we've had with CRHA maybe a couple months ago, as far as, you know, why are we, you know, why are we

scheduling officers the way we're scheduling them or you know why are they you know patrolling at pairs and all of that comes back to officer safety and that's very common not only here in this industry but you even look at police the same reason why if you call the police for any of these issues at the housing properties like South First Street or Sixth Street

if you call CPD and you know tell them that there's you know fighting or you know gambling or narcotic issues going on they're not sending just one officer they're sending four or five six even more depending on the incident or what's going on it's the same reason it's for it's for safety reasons and that's what we've we've done and currently do we've been providing for sequoia condominium services like that similar to south first street and sixth street since 20

2018, I want to say 2018, I believe.

All right.

I'm going back to that.

I can pull that up too.

Let me see.

And while I'm looking it up, this system that I'm using is our, again, it's called our TRACTIC system.

Mr.

Sales, I think has, I believe should have access to this.

It's the same client, the system I'm using has a client facing side to it as well, where these reports can be pulled on demand.

It's a very helpful tool, not only for crime mapping and incident tracking, but just to kind of help in these situations when we're talking, having these conversations about

how best to allocate resources.

The numbers don't lie.

Statistics are a big help in these types of conversations.

So this is the system I'm using and it can be helpful in these types of conversations.

But let me look up this property.

So Sequoia Condominium in the last 30 days, they have had seven level one incidents.

Again, those are the more severe incidents as compared to this time last year.

Around this time last year, they had about 11.

And we've been there since 2018, so I can go back another year, beginning of the year.

And remember, just like with every property, incidents will spike around the warmer months.

So we're still somewhat in the early part of the year.

So

Any property is going to have more incidents later in the summertime.

So going back to 2019, around that time, they had 14 level one incidents.

This is the beginning of 2019.

I believe we started with the middle of 2018.

So I don't have any report incident data for early 2018.

But you can see just statistically, statistically trends will fluctuate.

There's never going to be a downward trend that never ends.

I mean, unless you live in a utopia, it's just not going to be there statistically.

But if you look at the grand picture, the bigger picture, you can see, and using the system again, John, you should have access to this.

So you have these report statistics as well, or access to them.

These are very helpful in measuring the effectiveness of patrols and how better to allocate resources if there needs to be an increase or even a decrease like the conversation we're having now.

So it's not just unique to Charlottesville.

We use the system at all of our properties and it helps us just like police have their crime mapping softwares.

Okay, any other, I wanna make sure we hear from the other people with their hands raised.

Any other- Mr. Commissioner.

This is Commissioner Slaughter.

Okay.

I understand, you know what I'm saying, about the security or what have you and Mr.

Sales.

I had to send Mr.

Sales one night, you know what I'm saying, to ask him if we were going to have security.

Also, I've seen security just sitting in their vehicles and other people just going inside of the building, no one being at the desk.

So how are we protecting the residents if we don't even know who's going into the building?

Also, we provided a bar list with names of updated bar lists

of names of other people who shouldn't be in the building.

Also I've witnessed other people that shouldn't be in the building ending.

For security not using their bar mitt list and it's right there in front of them.

So how is this protecting the residents?

Hello?

Yeah, please.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yep.

Okay.

So a follow-up question to that.

Is this for Crescent Hall?

Yes.

Several different times of seeing them coming inside the building and they're not stopped.

But I don't actually recall that Mr.

Sales, I don't know if you still have the text.

I might can go back and get it from my phone or what have you.

The reason I asked about the date was because in January we had two officers patrolling concurrently.

One officer was assigned for access control while the other officer was on patrol.

After January, when the schedule changed, it was cut down for Crescent Hall by 50%.

We had one officer patrolling pretty much the whole time.

Before with the original setup, we had one officer who would sit at the front area, the lobby area of Crescent Hall, and who would be able to have access to the binder the whole time while he's there.

But when he's on patrol, he's not carrying that binder with him the whole time they're on patrol.

Cause originally, like I said, the setup was that one patrol officer would patrol the whole property and be in communication over radio with the other officer while the other one sat at the main lobby area and who had access to the barring list.

We had no security whistle on February the 26th.

And I text Mr.

Sales on February the 27th.

We had no security the entire night of the 26th.

And I texted Mr.

And a slight correction.

On February 5th, we agreed to have one security officer work eight hours a day, seven days per week from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Right, so for the, well first let me address the question about the security on the 26th.

I'm looking at the reports from the night of the 26th and 27th and there looks like there was an officer there patrolling.

I can see, and our reports have pictures submitted with each one.

Let me see.

So it appears officers were sending about reports every 30 minutes to an hour.

Like I said, around that time, especially at the end of February, by then we had only the one officer who was patrolling.

So I mean, it's possible that the officer was on patrol or on a different level of the building and that you didn't see him at that time.

But the officers here submitted his reports throughout that entire night.

There's pictures and our reports too.

Another unique feature with the system is each report is geotagged, meaning you can actually see if you're logged into the system where the officer was when he submitted the report.

So it shows not only the picture that they submitted, it also shows like a GPS pin drop showing where the officer was.

And then John, as far as responding to your comment, the

Schedule was actually finally changed to having just one officer seven days a week, because I believe that was the original goal upon reducing it.

But when calculating it, you had told us to reduce it down to completely just one officer 5.30pm to 1.30am.

And do you know when that change, when the change happened?

Let me see, I can pull it up.

It was somewhere around the early, early February, like the first week of February, I believe.

Let's see.

Better yet, I can just look at our schedule.

That might be easier.

And while I'm pulling it up, that's, you know, to my point, that's what I was saying before.

And, you know, reducing the security is going to have these type of repercussions where it's all about optics and all about visibility.

I mean, there's other elements to having a security program too, of course.

but you know the first and foremost defense whether you have an armed or unarmed officer is just presence is just command presence and visibility you know people feel safer and you know going back to the it works both ways going back to the conversation of having just you know a directly hired CRHA employee as a doorman having someone there as a presence means the world to a lot of residents and we understand that firsthand but you know when you when you reduce the schedule or reduce the the budget there's

There's repercussions from these different changes.

And one of them is just a drop in visibility.

And whether we're talking about Crescent Hall or we're talking about the family properties, if we're going from four officers down to three, down to zero, just the visibility of it, you're going to see a considerable change as far as a lack of deterrence and a lack of presence.

But now I have the schedule pulled up.

Let me look here.

Crescent Hall.

Okay, so it looks like we dropped down to one officer, if I'm reading this correctly, on Monday the 8th of February.

Because I believe the conversation to reduce security was had like, originally late the first week of February.

It was, if memory serves, again, I'm going off of memory, we had,

Conversations with Mr.

Sales on Friday, but the officers were scheduled to come in at five o'clock and we were getting closer and closer to five o'clock, like later on in the day.

So before we can make any schedule changes, I think what we had agreed on is having two officers through that weekend, because that's what I'm looking at through at the schedule.

It looks like we have two officers working that weekend.

One was working 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

The other got off an hour earlier, 5 p.m. to midnight.

Okay.

Should we, I see two raised hands from residents of Crescent Halls.

Maybe we should hear from them while we're talking about Crescent Halls.

And Chair Rutgers, this is Joe Rice.

I'm back so I can handle public comment if you'd like.

That is a very good question.

Okay.

I live at Crescent Halls.

Last Thursday night, we had no security whatsoever here.

I don't care what that little bebopter says, they weren't here.

They are signing in.

Yes, they are coming in and signing in and they're watching them.

And they're putting down apartments that are empty.

And they have been told that the apartments are empty, but they ignore the fact.

We have nothing right now.

Anything that wants to sign in the book from walking in.

They're not checking IDs to make sure.

They're not checking no-barment lists.

We might as well not have nothing as have what we have right now.

Thank you.

And next we have Emily Dreyfus.

Thanks.

I am very interested to hear from more Kristen Hall's residents if there is anyone else willing to speak up because I think that's the most important experience here.

Really, we're in a wonderful position.

Six or eight months ago, there was a lot of conversation about the need for community-based alternatives to help with safety in the neighborhoods, including Crescent Halls, but also other neighborhoods.

And we now have, thanks to Mayor Walker and community members, two options that are really

I think this is a great opportunity and I appreciate Mr.

Sales' leadership on this because we aren't looking at neighborhood watch.

I think it'd be helpful to have Mr.

Sales or Mayor Walker explain a little more detail about what is available because the programs are

Violence Interrupters and Prevention.

So if there are people that are causing challenges or posing a threat or fighting, these are folks who will go right in and help isolate and help deescalate, like help people calm down and resolve things without using violence or using weapons of any kind.

So those are great options and I hope we'll explore those more.

The other thing is I just wanted to comment that this process is difficult, that if we're in public comment limiting to three minutes, I think is very helpful.

And I don't really think a contract negotiation or, you know, try to work out a problem with a current provider is best done at a board meeting.

So that's just my opinion on that.

Thank you.

I'm at Crescent Hall and my name is Alice Washington.

Yes.

So as far as that question, the officers aren't, right now, since the reduction, the officers aren't assigned to the stationary desk post.

They've been assigned to the patrol post, which is, you can see through all the reports or CRHA can see through the reports there.

walking the property continuously.

So they're not stationed there.

I mean, we can have a conversation about posting them there at that front desk to control access, but it's a give and take.

And that was a conversation we had early on with Mr.

Sales.

If they're there at that front post, they are controlling access, but if there's an incident that happens on the other side of the property or upstairs, their hands are tied.

They can't respond to that if they're at the front desk and vice versa.

That's why they've been on the continuous roving patrol post.

Okay, well, you have had one officer there, he's sitting at the desk.

People come in, they sign the book.

He's not asking for ID.

That was the purpose for him, for the book to be over on the desk that he's sitting at.

They sign the book and he see the ID.

We have told your officers a couple of times about a couple of apartments that's empty that people are signing into.

But nobody is checking IDs and checking those apartment numbers.

And if you look on the book, or if you come down here, I can show you exactly which one.

So see, that's not happened to us either.

I came in last night, which was Sunday night, quarter to 11.

Five people could have came in with me, went up the steps and the security person wouldn't have never known it.

I was going to say the officers primarily patrol.

They do some, they do do their best to try to split up their duties between patrolling and in between patrolling, they may take a break at the front desk.

But with only having the one officer, they're basically doing two jobs, wearing two hats for one officer.

It's challenging to be able to control access to the entire building and patrol the whole building at the same time.

What I would say though, is we have provided a

Resident dispatch number as a resource for all residents to contact.

We have a 24 seven dispatch line.

So even if given the challenge with having only one officer there,

Residents can still call us anytime the officer's there on the property.

And even if he's on the other side of the property, if you see something, we would definitely encourage all residents to utilize that resource that's there and call us if they see something.

The officer can quickly respond and handle any issue that may be occurring.

But at this time, we're just basically trying to juggle both the officers basically just trying to juggle both tasks at the same time.

I'm not sure.

I think it was published.

I don't know if it was posted like on bulletin boards throughout the community.

All right.

Thank you, Ms. Washington.

Why don't we move to Mr. Gathers, who's had his hand up and then try to wrap up this portion, which is obviously gonna need extra discussion now that we know that there was another proposal, but let's hear what Mr. Gathers, oh, wait, his hand is down.

If you can hear us, you are permitted to talk.

Just go ahead and unmute.

Well, I can just leave him in the attendee allowed to talk list.

So if he can

chime in at some point.

OK. Why don't we move on to some discussion with commissioners.

And this is new information.

So we may need more discussion before we actually vote on the budget.

So my thoughts are that we need to continue with the safety committee meetings and figure out what the plan needs to be there.

They asked for the schedule of Millennium and we did not know, well I know I didn't know, that what Millennium was working was not what was bedded out.

Century Force realized that and they did not let us know that, which is why they were able to feel for that significantly higher amount than what was in the contract.

So Tim, it's to the commissioners now so you can send an email.

Thank you.

So I think

And, you know, we need to figure out what this is.

I've been talking about the entire time, what this holistic approach needs to look like.

And there is one point that, you know, I agree with, and I've been saying that is that we are at the time of year where just historically, you know, we do have an increase in all levels of,

encounters, which they are calling levels one through five, I guess.

And so it is something that we need to figure out, but I think that we need to work with the families that live there with CRHA, with the safety committee.

It isn't something that we can delay.

And then we need to figure out what, I wrote a note down here to talk to Chief Brackney about this comment about officers only driving, and I'm assuming that they're meeting just like just through West Haven instead of any other parts.

So I'll see what that means because there was one point where it was stated that they had very good interactions and they were like co-patrolling and then it was this comment about that, you know, the officers not necessarily patrolling.

So I'm gonna ask, you know, ask about that and then no one wants to go through what we were going through.

last year, and so whatever our solution is, we do need to have one.

I know that council is in budget season and considering what support you offer both Peace in the Street and Buck Squad, but there are also some things that they can't do, so we need to figure out

that we wouldn't want them to do just for safety reasons.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Sorry about the situation earlier.

I was wondering, Mr.

Sales, you had mentioned earlier that you were expecting or projecting a potential decrease of roughly $150,000, I think, in rental income.

But then the last slide that you showed had a figure of 357, I think.

Yes, please.

I don't know if you need to pull up the image or...

That should be up on the screen now.

So the first number you're referencing is the net tenant revenue.

We're expecting $150,000 reduction in that as a revenue.

We have found other ways to increase revenue, such as one-time shortfall funding.

So we don't expect, well, we do expect to get it next year.

That's because we're splitting it up, but it is one time.

It's not something that we're gonna continue to receive.

The other number you're referencing is the net income.

Yes, it says $357,000, but HUD would like us to hold over a half a million dollars in reserves

for instances where let's say there is a government shutdown, we have that almost every other year it seems, where public housing is negatively impacted by that shutdown.

Like I think in two or three years ago, there was a shutdown where for a month, the housing authority didn't receive a reserve funding.

for operating subsidies, so you had to go into your reserve.

HUD did catch housing authorities back up on that, but if that was to happen today, we could not sustain ourselves for a month or two months.

So this looks like, yes, is a nice rosy picture, but this only gets us close to what our goal has to be in order to get out of trouble status.

So it looks like we have $357,000 to spend, we don't.

because that number needs to be $520,000 because we're having a monthly operating cost of $265,000 a month for public housing.

So we're still not getting to where we need to get.

It's gonna be a two year process to get us there.

And we only got this because we have to cut things and we have to place priorities.

Okay.

Thank you.

And other commissioners want to weigh in on this?

I don't think we don't, Mr.

Sales, we're voting on this next week, so we don't need to come to a conclusion tonight.

One of the things that would be helpful to see is just pricing on what it would cost to have a full time doorman at Crescent Halls.

So the various things that residents have been calling for.

So what is how much does that cost as part of the proposal to sort of see what that looks like.

It would be helpful to to get some sense of like some of the various scenarios of

funding.

I know one of the calls for the Buck Squad is that they said that they want funding, they might be getting funding from additional sources, but to be able to continue the work they're doing, they need money, which makes sense.

and so I do have a price for the door person because I did add after having conversations with Ms. Washington and Ms. Sanders earlier, I did go back and work on that.

When you talk about timeframes,

What are those timeframes?

So that's one person.

So it would be two people working that shift, but that's what it would cost us.

The second person would be a part-time person.

The first person would be full-time working the same hours that Sentry Force currently works.

in the afternoon for full coverage, eight hours.

So they would come in after we would leave.

and I did talk to Miss Washington and this isn't gonna be something that we roll out overnight.

It's getting a job description together that incorporates all the duties that Crescent Hall's residents would like to see that individual do.

Are those hours working?

It's the timeframe and hours needed based upon the activity that Century Force was seeing.

So we talked and figured out when we were trying to figure out adjusting hours after January, trying to figure out, get it to the contracted budget amount,

Those are the hours we came to, and it's based upon the activity that Century Force was seeing, but that's all subject to change.

Like if we find there's more activity at a certain timeframe, we can adjust those hours to fit that need.

The only other thing I'm concerned about

is the liability.

The door person would be completely hands-off.

I mean, that's the same way that security force is now.

I mean, they are observing report.

They're not getting involved in any of the activities.

And I think their reports would show that.

I mean, there was an incident at South First Street where they called the police to get involved.

They're not getting involved.

They're observing and reporting the incidents, which is the same thing that this person would do while checking IDs at the front door.

If the person is banned getting involved

asking them to leave and if they don't leave then escalating it up but they're not going to get physically involved in any of these incidents.

I'm not suggesting that they would want to get physically involved.

My question is if I'm coming through the door and I want to get in and I want to whatever you know what if it's that person who

Harms, the door person.

I think that's something we should look into certainly.

And I think that will

All of that will play into what we're currently paying in insurance.

And what their proposal is to continue services, it's $86,000.

I certainly don't think our insurance is gonna go up $40,000 to cover this one person.

There's still gonna be a net savings.

Even if we're at $15,000 is what it costs us insurance wise.

The money isn't there.

That's also something we have to remember.

The money isn't there.

It's there.

I can make it work for a person.

But if we're looking at a contract of what we currently have or what's proposed at $178,000, it doesn't work.

I mean, the money isn't there.

We'll be in trouble status again next year because we won't have the reserve there.

Sales, please don't

I don't mistake my questions as thinking that this is the path we should stay on, but I think there are some legitimate things that I want to make sure that we have thought about, because certainly a lawsuit

Lisa, it's Dave Oberg.

If to the extent that one of our employees was injured, it would be covered by the workers' comp insurance.

Any increase in that insurance coverage is going to be de minimis.

It just is.

It's just, you know, you can always have someone get injured on the job.

And to the extent that

The person was told, look, you're not entitled to have physical interactions.

And that policy was very clear.

Then there would be no liability.

If we provided the person with a gun and we knew that the person was a convicted felon, then yeah, we might run into some liability issues.

I knew I should ask you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Any other commissioners want to speak?

I'd like to say I was

I'm not convinced that this new proposal budget would help us.

Maybe there are things I'm missing, but I'm still in favor of the budget as Mr.

Sales has proposed it, offering more funds to the safety committee to then

use as needed with much discussion with the residents and kind of leave the details and particulars of what's needed to more discussions with the residents as we go along.

So I'm just trying to give you some direction myself.

I was just kind of wondering whether there might be any impact on crime with construction beginning and people moving around.

Because it seemed like that would sort of lead to a decline in certain activities once that construction starts.

And I will say so for both construction sites, both agencies are providing security.

Okay, great.

So why don't we move on?

And it sounds like we'll be voting on this March 30th at 5 p.m.

I believe.

If residents want to write in comments or connect with the safety committee, I would encourage that so we can hear from you.

and maybe we can even send out a, I don't know, the last note about when we're voting so we can hear more from residents.

Goodness, this agenda is heavy on me tonight.

Good evening, everyone.

So we are currently changing offices.

So the Crescent Hall's rental office will be relocating to South First Street and West Haven.

So we're going to have a presence at West Haven for the first time in a couple of years.

And the HCV program has already moved to Sixth Street, which is why they are paying rent to the public housing site.

We're currently working on our vacant units.

We projected we're going to have four completed,

this week, two at Riverside, one at Mickey and one at West Haven.

We do have families that are ready to move into those units.

We've done 11 new public housing move-ins in March and a total of 17 this year.

We currently have

Tenant Delinquent Account of about $51,000.

We did receive some funding from the city through the CDBG program.

So that will wipe out all delinquent accounts for the tenants plus pay two months of tenant rent for April and May.

So those notices will go out to the tenants who are affected by the delinquent accounts being wiped out and all the tenants

and public housing who will have their rent paid, which is everybody.

I did announce earlier that HCV waitlist has opened.

It will be opening on March 29th, I'm sorry, and 9 a.m. enclosed April the 2nd at 4 p.m.

Individuals can start registering for the portal tomorrow.

It will be live for individuals to register.

If you are on a CRHA wait list, you will need to get a registration code because you are already in the system and it will not allow you to create a new account.

So you need to call CRHA at 434-326-4672.

The phone number again is 434-326-4672.

The codes will also be mailed out to our residents, but mail is running really slow.

So if you are interested, you may want to give us a call at the number.

And I think that's all I have.

Oh, one thing, I'm sorry.

Tonight, we did apply for the PPP loan.

We were approved.

So it is a loan for now.

And until we go through the steps of giving it, making it forgiven,

to see if we qualify for that.

So once we do go through that process, it will no longer be a liability.

So tonight it's still, it's not even showing in the budget because right now it's still a loan.

So if we were to not qualify for the loan to be forgiven, we would need to pay that loan back.

So we must not show it as an asset.

It's still a liability.

So we have kept everything the same at the point that it

The loan is forgiven.

We'll come back with the extra dollars and figure out where to place them.

It could be not doing anything with it.

So then it gets us to that max threshold for reserve, which will open us up next year of totally being open to do whatever we want with the money, which is not there at that point yet.

So if we do make, get the loan forgiven, which is $270,000, it will get us to our goal.

And that is all I have.

I think we received it in May.

After I got here, we realized it was forgiven.

I want to say it was in October, November.

All right.

I think we skipped.

Oh, yeah.

I put it at the end.

Oh, nevermind.

Okay.

In the printed out one, it was earlier.

Don't worry.

Nevermind.

I'm sorry.

That was my fault.

After talking to Mr. Oberg, he didn't say we need to add the item to the end of the agenda.

Hello.

I didn't realize I was doing it.

I apologize.

We've had a lot of exciting stuff happen over the past month.

We had the groundbreaking ceremony for South First Street, which many of you were in attendance for, and we really appreciated that.

And we are in the planning process since we recently closed on Crescent Halls to go ahead and get a similar event in place there.

And I'm hoping to have some announcements soon once I talk to the Crescent Halls Resident Association about

Times that will work for them.

We also have a really exciting announcement.

Vincent Manny, our new redevelopment project manager's first day was today and I sent out his information to the redevelopment committee and if any board members did not get that email I'd really like to know because it means that we might

not have your email entered correctly on that mailing list and I'd like to correct it.

Vincent's really excited to get to know everyone and we hope to introduce him at either the next board work session or meeting.

We're also in the process of having meetings with a familiar person, Dave Norris, who's with the Financial Opportunity Center and we're getting

A lot of options with that as far as possible.

Having staff there certain days of the week, there's a lot of different things that we'll be looking into.

Great, thank you.

Any questions for Miss Glynn Matthews?

Okay, yeah, that's wonderful to have the new redevelopment coordinator that we can maybe meet at, I don't know, one of our next redevelopment meetings or maybe the next board meeting.

All right, so now let's do the resolution, which I need to find where I set.

So this is a resolution, does anyone have,

I'll go ahead and just read it and then if there's questions, ask questions.

This is a resolution number 1423 to authorize application to payroll protection or program known as the PPP.

Whereas the Charlottesville rate redevelopment and housing authority hereafter CRHA is a local housing authority.

Whereas CRHA is governed by an appointed Board of Commissioners, which is empowered to make all managerial and financial decisions for the authority, including the decision to apply for and execute loans and grants for CRHA.

Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has placed CRHA in the position of needing additional operating funds in order to offset the lost income.

resulting from crisis, whereas CRHA wishes to continue to employ and compensate its employees during the emergency closing, and whereas the federal government has created a loan program in response to the COVID-19 crisis known as the Paycheck Protection Program, the PPP, for which CRHA is legally entitled to apply.

Therefore, the board by

unanimous, well, this is if we say yes to it, would on behalf of CRHA under the Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program and hereby authorizes and directs him or his designee to execute any documentation or loan applications necessary to affect CRHA in applying for, accepting and administering the loan money on behalf of CRHA.

Okay, questions?

I know we did do this before, so it worked out.

But are there any questions for Mr.

Sales?

I move to adopt or to approve resolution 1423.

All right, Leslie, are you still there to do a roll call vote?

Chair Riker?

Dr. Henry?

Yes.

Yes.

All right, motion passed.

Thank you.

And so we have a last session for public comment before we adjourn.

And then as I mentioned, we will be meeting again, let me make sure I get the time right, Tuesday, March 30th at 5 p.m. to move forward on the annual budget.

And then also that day we'll have the safety meeting at six o'clock.

So,

I do have one question.

There was on the agenda, I guess, a question mark beside the work session.

It's the second Thursday.

But that is really early in the month.

I just wanted to make sure that was still what the board wanted to do for work session.

We do have an item that we're going to look to address, which is the relocation plan.

Does anyone have a reference for the 8th or the 15th for a work session?

This would be a Thursday, no redevelopment meeting

And the 8th, it is scheduled on the 8th.

I just asked because it was so early in the month.

Normally, we do it in the middle of the month.

So since this is a five Thursday month, we're doing it really pretty early in the month.

That's the only reason I ask.

But the 8th is fine.

That's what we have on our calendar as well.

OK, great.

We'll keep it at the 8th.

And I think those are 5 o'clock.

We've been starting at the 5th.

OK.

All right, public comment.

If anybody else would like to address commission at this time, please click the raise hand icon.

You'll have three minutes to speak.

If you're joining us by phone, star nine.

It looks like we have Alice Washington.

Mr.

Sales, I have a question for you.

I know with the security with Crescent Hall, that's fine, but what about our other units?

So for the other sites at the safety committee meeting, a lot of the residents ask for other options beyond having a safety, a security firm, such as a community-based approach, like what the Buck Squad is doing,

and other agencies like Peace in the Streets.

Oh, okay.

Cause I thought about it.

Crescent Hall is not the only, you know, site that need it.

That's all.

And next we have Brandon Collins.

Hello again commissioners.

Brandon Collins.

I work for PHAR, Public Housing Association of Residents.

Just want to remind anyone in the public interested in the HCV list.

Check out CRHA's website tomorrow to start getting your information loaded into their system and so you're all set and ready to apply to be on the waiting list on a week from today.

And you can call PHAR at 434-984-3255.

I got our number right.

I just want to say a couple things.

First off, I'm so pleased that Miss Washington joined us tonight.

I think Miss Washington speaks with pretty solid authority on behalf of the building there at Crescent Halls.

And I just really appreciate her leadership.

And I think you all can trust her relaying of the input from folks and her analysis of the situation there.

I did want to just remind you all that I do think the safety committee was clear on what it supports with this budget.

And that is how Mr.

Sales had proposed the budget.

I do think a little bit of work needs to happen.

PHAR will be at Crescent Halls a bunch this week talking about redevelopment and all the big stuff coming up.

I'm trying to inform folks, but we're also going to be getting input on the bus stop situation over there.

And we will certainly be talking to folks about the idea of switching up to a door person type model rather than the security company.

and we're gonna do that work quickly and we'll be able to give you some input before your budget decision and hopefully as soon as possible because I know you don't have a whole lot of time to work through a tough time.

I very much appreciate all of your all's input.

It's so nice to see some of the newer folks chiming in more and more and just consistently standing up for residents and resident involvement and doing what's right and not being afraid to challenge the status quo.

And I think you're all doing a good job with that.

So do appreciate that.

And I think that's all we got.

And just one quick, I've been thinking about Lisa's question, Mr.

Sales, since she asked it, and just from someone who has worked that late shift before and even overnight shifts in the past,

That's something I want us to be really thoughtful about even with that one and a part time.

It's been not sitting well with me since because if that person's out sick or anything, we just do want to figure out like what backup and you know, and if even if it's increased a bit and they are, you know,

to full time.

It's a shift that you can easily get burnt out on.

I agree.

It seems like if we're going in that direction, we need to have some meetings with Crescent Hall residents to figure out

what's needed and then maybe there are roles that can overlap with other roles in the authority so that they can rotate so it's not all on that one person.

For Mr.

Sales, along that line, are there other housing authorities in the state that maybe have this model where they have hired a front desk person or something that we could ask?

I'm not a big person on reinventing the wheel if other people are doing it.

I will start calling around to some of the other housing authorities that have senior developments that are similar to Crescent Halls to figure that out.

I will say a lot of them have gone to, or a lot of them don't have security.

Let me start by saying that because it's a big expense.

Alexandria and Charlottesville is totally different when it comes to funding amount of what they get compared to what we receive in funding.

Not good comparison at all.

So I will call around.

Richmond has several senior developments.

Norfolk has several senior developments.

I'll call around to some of those housing authorities who have connections and figure out what they're doing besides keyed entry and security cameras, because that's what a lot of them are doing, are key card entry, access, and security cameras.

So I'll call around and get that information.

The crossings does have someone at the desk.

I do know that.

I did see them last week.

Yeah.

They have someone at the desk and they also have a camera that also helps.

And key card entry.

Right.

I also just want to add that at the safety committee, folks were basically saying they would like to look at the community-based approach so that we can plan it effectively and that there needs to be boundaries.

And so that was one key thing.

I just wanted to make sure we don't leave out.

It was stressed that there

You know, they just can't come on our properties and do whatever they want, but there needs to be boundaries that is agreed upon, like doing MOU, exactly, et cetera, et cetera.

Yep, good point.

I just wanted to add that our proposal, as far as the security services go, I just wanted to reiterate that the proposal isn't mutually exclusive, meaning we weren't proposing that this is the only solution.

I fully support any community-based approaches as well as to solving the or helping to resolve some of the safety concerns throughout the properties.

I think together paired with the security solutions we've prepared in our proposal could be a valuable asset.

Of course, as we discussed with Mr.

Sales, the more resources that can be devoted to a security program for the properties, the better.

But I certainly think that pairing a security program in any form with community centered approaches would be effective.

That's not to say that our solution is the only solution.

So with our proposal that we've submitted, it would still provide that cost savings while also exploring other options.

It wouldn't be to say one or the other.

As far as reaching out for feedback from other housing authorities, I will, if the board would like, I'll go ahead and provide some contact information for Mr. Pettigrew, who's the executive director of ARHA.

We also have a pending, a possible contract coming up with the Norfolk Housing Authority.

Ms. Karen Rose is the security program manager down there.

for the NRHA properties.

They also have some senior developments.

She has reached out for a proposal from us and we're in the process of speaking with them about that.

But for feedback purposes, I can supply the board with contact information for that.

And while I'm at it, I'll also provide a copy of our proposal that we sent to Mr.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm sure Mr.

Sales, I mean, you can send it to him.

Okay, do we have a motion to adjourn?

And Leslie, could you please, oh, do we need a second?

Chair Riker?

Yes.

Dr. Henry?

Yes.

Commissioner Slaughter?

Yes.

Okay, meeting adjourned.

Thank you all very much.